The present invention relates to a vehicle seat comprising a first and second element for providing support for a person sitting in the vehicle seat, and a link mechanism arranged so as to interconnect the first and the second element in an articulated manner, so that the second element can be folded towards and away from the first element.
In order to increase the storage space for baggage in a vehicle, it is desirable that one or more seats in the vehicle are collapsible to that the space where the seat is situated is converted into baggage space. Such collapsible vehicle seats are found, for example, in passenger cars of the estate type and mini-buses. In these vehicles, all or part of the rear seat can be collapsed so that a surface located on the rear side of the backrest forms a part of the floor or storage surface of the baggage space. The backrest is then folded forwards and over the seat part. Alternatively, the seat part is first folded forwards and then the backrest is folded forwards.
When the backrest is folded forwards, it is desirable that the rear side of the backrest comes to lie at the same level as the floor of the usual storage space in order to avoid differences in the level of the floor, which make loading and unloading of baggage more difficult. By virtue of the fact that the rear side of the backrest comes to lie at the same level as the floor of the usual storage space, the greatest possible volume of the baggage space is also obtained, which is desirable.
However, the collapsible vehicle seats which exist today require a great deal of space in the collapsed state. In a case where the seat part is folded forwards first, after which the backrest is folded forwards, the seat part comes to be located above the floor level in the baggage space. Furthermore, this collapsed vehicle seat requires a great deal of space in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. In a case where the backrest is folded over the seat part, a great deal of space is required below the floor level in the baggage space, which results in the clearance of the vehicle above the roadway being reduced or the floor level of the baggage space having to be raised.
It is an object of the present invention to produce a collapsible vehicle seat which in the collapsed state requires a smaller space than known collapsible vehicle seats.
This is achieved by means of a vehicle seat of the type referred to in the introduction, in which the first and the second element, when in. a folded-together state, extend in an essentially common plane, and the second element accommodates the first element.
Such a vehicle seat is very compact in the collapsed state and requires a small space below the floor level in the baggage space, which simplifies the installation of the seat in the vehicle because the geometry of the vehicle is not appreciably affected by the seat when it is collapsed.